


The Devil and Grace is in the Details

by mgsmurf



Series: Military Modern AU Stories [5]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Military, F/M, Retelling, futuristic dystopia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:27:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26708209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mgsmurf/pseuds/mgsmurf
Summary: JB Week 2020Seven tales of sins and virtues retelling JB scenes in a futuristic military AU. Out of order retelling of snippets to match the prompts.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth, Mention of Jaime Lannister/Cersei Lannister
Series: Military Modern AU Stories [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1500257
Comments: 12
Kudos: 20
Collections: Jaime x Brienne Week 2020





	1. Pride & Humility

Jaime Lannister sucked in a rough breath as Daenerys Targaryn’s voice echoed through the tin walls of the building that served as her headquarters, for he had killed her father, a lifetime ago. They had taken him at the gates disarming him and leaving him still in his road gear still, old jeans, a worn leather jacket and a simple red t-shirt. He stood at parade rest, feet shoulder widen apart, hands linked behind his back, ruined hand in his good one.

Before him was a makeshift panel to judge him. To one side of the beautiful and pale Daenerys sat Sansa Stark, auburn hair braided down one shoulder, more stunning as a woman than she had been as a teen. To the other side sat John Snow, dark hair and a scowl, he looked more a Stark than his half brother Robb the Young Wolf ever had.

“The Lannisters offered up a company of their troops for our cause, did they not?” Daenerys had the odd pale beauty of her family, an echo of President Aerys’ mad voice in her own. 

“Yes, Cersei did,” Jaime answered. “She lied to you, just as she lied to me.” How many lies had Cersei told? Daenerys frowned, her eyes jolting to Tyrion, for Cersei had played him like the rest of them. “She’s staying south, joining forces with Euron Greyjoy, and will be ready to take on any who don’t perish here.” It was a play General Tywin would have respected, for what did the worries of the Starks and the north really matter. 

“So what pay tell brought you north, Colonel Lannister,” Daenerys asked, voice as chill as the air. “Alone and without the promised troops, one old, crippled… veteran.” Daenerys scoffed and Jaime could feel the eyes on the room centered harsher on him. Her glance fell on the empty holster on his left hip, because his ruined right was no good with a gun these days, which meant he was also no good with a rifle of any sort. 

Jaime kept his face neutral. Memories of standing before tribunals in the past snapped into his mind, clad in pressed Lannister red, a chest of metals, a display of his reputation, strong and young. Yet, here he stood in worn jeans and a faded leather jacket, scoffed boots and only one good hand, gray at his temples and lines creasing his face. He had been broken most of his adult life, thanks to Daenerys’ father, yet now he was old and outwardly as cast aside and broken as he had always been inside. 

“I promised I would fight.” He tilted up his chin. “I’m here to keep that promise.” Not that any thought he had morals or honor, but he did, and he could not stand by while the important fight for life or death was clearly here, in the winter on the northern plains. “I do have skills to aid you. Do you not need everyone you can get in this fight?” He had seen the state of the troops and most seemed no more than ranchers, farmers and oil field workers. 

Daernerys scoffed again, but Sansa Stark spoke before Daenerys could. “The Starks also have issues with Lannister Corporation and Colonel Jaime Lannister.” Her voice was clear, loud enough for all to hear. She tilted up her long neck. She held a more radiant beauty than her mother ever had, although her blue eyes held too much sadness for someone so young. “Did you not draw on my father and his men in the streets of DC? Did you not partake of your father’s rebellion against the Stark Corporation?”

Jaime stood taller, pride searing inside him. “We were at war,” his voice rang clear and stern against the metal walls. “I won’t apologize for what I have done for my family and their interests.” Did she expect him to apologize for drawing on her father after Catelyn had taken his own brother captive? He could have killed Ned Stark that day as he had done with the Stark guards, but he had spared Ned, out of honor. Yes, he took up arms against Rob Stark, then was captured and ill treated by the young general, yet he asked no reparations for such. As much as he might dislike the Starks, in truth there was only one he had ever truly harmed himself. 

“The things I do for love.” The faint voice almost a whisper in the busy room. 

Jaime snapped his eyes to Brandon Stark off to the side, his heart hammering in his chest. The once boy was a man now, his tall, slender frame folded into a motorized chair. His dark eyes looked at the empty wall beyond Jaime. Rumor had it the accident had more trauma than to his body alone. Yet, Brandon said nothing more. Jaime remembered rain in his eyes, the sound of screeching tires, screams, and sirens flaring as Jaime had drudged away. He had hoped the action, the car, would silence the boy who had witnessed too much of him and Cersei’s relationship. Once in a dingy cell he had admitted as much to Catelyn Stark, yet she was long dead and knowledge of his actions seemed to have died with her. 

A chair scrapped on the floor, a pair of boots sounded. “You don’t know me, President Targaryn,” a steady voice rang out, Brienne. She approached Jaime and stepped just before him on his right side. “I am Major Brienne Tarth, loyal to the Stark Corporation. Do not judge Colonel Lannister for deeds mostly done by the Lannister Corporation and its agents. Jaime Lannister was once my captive, and then together we were taken captive by the Bolton forces. As such,” she paused, glanced back at Jaime, “he saved me from rape, saved my life, more than once, and still bears the resulting injuries for defending me.” 

Brienne turned her attention to Sansa. “Ms. Sansa, I was able to save you because Colonel Lannister equipped me, provisioned me and allowed me passage to search for and find you. You would not be alive today without the aid he gave me.” 

Brienne and her blunt style presented too many truths. Jaime swallowed. He felt laid bare before what should be his enemies. He could only make out the back and side of Brienne’s face, unable to see her expression, those beautiful blue eyes. 

Sansa leaned back, pinched her delicate lips. “You trust him at his word?” she asked. 

“I do.” Steady, solid Brienne answered. 

Sansa cocked her head, blinked. “You would trust him with your life?”

Brienne glanced behind her at Jaime, blinked, before returning her gaze to Sansa and the panel, chin up. “I have before and I would willingly again.”

Jaime sucked in a breath. He was not used to someone, anyone, standing up for him, not like this, not before his enemies. Damn Brienne with her unfaltering beliefs in him and her infallible self earning him respect from a room he had held none in before. 

Sansa nodded, as Daernerys’ frown deepened. “Then,” Sansa spoke, “Colonel Lannister has my vote to stay and lend what aid he can.”

“And what do you say General Snow?” Daenerys’ voice cut the silence of the room, the steady beating of Jaime’s heart. 

The young general cocked his head, Jaime tilted his, raised an eyebrow. Snow furrowed his dark brows, gave a tight frown, looking so much like his father, Ned. “We need every man we can get,” he finally said. Jaime let out a breath he did not know he had been holding, because perhaps he was shit with a gun these days, but he knew strategy, knew how to command troops. 

Daenery’s frown turned even deeper, her steady gaze on Snow. Yet, she waved a hand at her head general Greyworm. The man’s dark face echoed his president’s frown, but he nodded and stepped forward. He shoved Jaime’s handgun into his chest with a sneer. Oddly the smug expression Jaime would have given years ago did not grace his lips. 

“We’re adjoined,” Daenerys stated, shoving her chair back with anger. The room emptied, eyes on Jaime but no words shared. Brienne still standing beside him, gave only a nod of her head as she turned to leave. Likely that was for the best as he wasn’t sure he had the proper words to thank her for her support. Jaime did not know what exactly the north held for him, but he had dodged the first bullet of the adventure.


	2. Envy and Kindness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ‘She fucked Lancel, Kettleback, and even Moon Boy, for all I know,’ Tyrion’s words repeated, meant to cut him. Yet was it really envy that Jaime felt.

‘ _She fucked Lancel, Kettleback, and even Moon Boy, for all I know._ ’ The words echoed in Jaime’s mind as the miles slowly passed by. Bronn spared him a glance, eyes quickly back on the road. More and more people traveled by car as the newest version of the virus continued to wreck havoc. 

Anger seethed and rumbled beneath Jaime’s skin. Everything that happened in Appalachia had been about getting back to Cersei. “Do you know what I did to get back to you?” he had asked. His new clean clothes had felt as odd as the heavy cast and brace to supposedly save his ruined hand. He had tried to cozy closer to Cersei, ran a strand of her lovely golden tresses through his good hand. Cersei huffed and scooted further away. “You took too long,” she’d replied. 

‘ _She fucked Lancel, Kettleback, and even Moon Boy, for all I know,_ ’ Tyrion’s words repeated, meant to cut him. 

“Not gonna mope the whole fuckin’ way to St. Louis are you?” Bronn asked, his voice thick with a rough Brooklyn accent. “Not sure I’m gonna make it you gloom and fuckin’ doom five hundred miles.” 

Jaime let out a long sigh, tried to let go of some of his anger. “You want cutting remarks instead.”

“Be better than your current emo.” Bronn gave a chuckle. “Could let you have all the details of my latest conquer: pretty blonde, huge tits.”

Jaime groaned. Bronn for all his rough exterior and cut-throat nature for some reason always had a new woman: young, old, married, seasoned, innocent. The man didn’t seem to have a type besides female. 

The threat of hearing more and vulgar details got Jaime’s tongue loose. The flat rolling red hills of Oklahoma passed outside the window, so he told a long tale of the summer he spent as a ranchhand at the Marbrand’s ranch nearby -- “be good to get you a feel for what you have,” his father, Tywin, had commented at the time. 

It was later that night, sitting upon the cheap sheets in the best motel they could find, that Jaime got to wondering if his anger was really envy. Bronn laughed at the old sit-com he’d found among the few viewing options in the middle of nowhere town, gutted by the economy, viruses and drugs. 

Cersei had always been envious, still was today, of any woman who gave him more than a casual smile. As preteens one of the neighbor girls, a good friend of Cersei’s had taken an interest in him, Melara. He still remembered the daggers Cersei used to stare at the girl when Melara innocently flirted with him. She was soon no longer in Cersei’s circle of cool friends and then moved away. 

He had given his life to Cersei, to be hers in secret he had given up his own chance to marry and have kids who were his own. He was her true love and other half she’d said in their stolen moments, always too brief and too sparse. Jaime frowned and took a deep draw on his piss flavored cheep beer. The glass longneck slippery in his hand. 

He knew envy, Cersei with Robert Baratheon and Rhaegar Targaryn before him. Thoughts of their lips on Cersei’s soft ones, seeing her last thing at night, with dawn light on her pale face in the morning, all caused a tight ball of envy in his gut. Oh, Jaime knew how Cersei worked, if he could admit to himself. It was not that she did not have smarts or skill, but she defaulted to her beauty, flirting, and more if she must. But for so long she’d had Jaime to bat her eyes at, to spread her legs for, and he’d do – had done – anything for it. “You took too long,” she’d said. 

Jaime downed the last of his beer and reached for another. The cold glass counter to the hot within him. 

#

Jaime concentrated on his cousin Lancel’s thin neck. He tried to remember how old Lancel was, mid twenties, not much more than that, even if he had served President Baratheon for years. Jaime had heard Lancel had been injured at the Battle of the Beltway, yet he reasoned it was more than that, Cersei using him, whatever part he might have played in President Baratheon’s death, all the damn politics. He was rail thin, and when he finally turned to Jaime, his voice still sure as he continued on about defenses and units, Jaime noticed the stubble on his hallowed cheeks, the few strands of gray already among his golden buzz cut.

Jaime nodded, the words washing over him. This man fucked Cersei, he thought. The image of Lancel’s thin frame above the naked beauty of his Cersei twisted in Jaime’s gut. 

“Did you hear me, cousin?” Lancel asked, head cocked. 

“Yes.” Jaime nodded, although in truth he had not heard much of it as much as known Lancel did as his father suggested, and Jaime knew his Uncle Kevan’s, longtime right-hand man to General Tywin, moves well. “All sounds good,” he replied. 

Lancel, wane and thin, gave a tight smile on parched lips, and nodded back. This man fucked Cersei. Cersei let this almost boy fuck her. Cersei took advantage of his boy because he looked a bit like Jaime himself. It would take nothing to hit Lancel, knock him to the ground, pound in that seemingly innocent face. Here alone and away from others, it would ruin nothing, and given Lancel’s current meekness he likely wouldn’t even mention it to his father, not that Uncle Kevan could harm Jaime, even with Tywin cold and dead in the ground. 

Anger twisted in his gut, envy slick and oily, yet it wasn’t. He didn’t want to hit Lancel. He held no anger against this young, broken man before him, not really. It was not Lancel, or any other man who might have fucked Cersei, he had issue with. Who he actually directed his hatred towards bubbled beneath the surface, unnamed. 

“Was there anything else, Colonel?” Lancel asked, perhaps wondering why they had not discussed Cersei, where Jaime’s anger was. 

“No,” Jaime said, his voice light, any gloom or ill he temporarily felt gone. “Carry on.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit more book canon mixed with the show here. Places are based on past stories in the series where the Lannisters are from Texas.


	3. Wrath and Patience

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brienne waited, the cold seeping in deeper, night falling crisp and still. Somewhere in the distance Sansa Stark suffered and there would be a moment she’d break and Brienne would be waiting and ready. Or would she....

Brienne waited, the cold seeping in deeper, night falling crisp and still. Somewhere in the distance Sansa Stark suffered and there would be a moment she’d break and Brienne would be waiting and ready. 

She’d sent Podrick off to get burgers and coffee. As he was too young to drive, Pod would have to walk the quarter of a mile to the dinner, warm up while likely being supplied hot chocolate and greasy fries by the waitress. On his return, he’d gobble up his own burger in the motel room before bringing her chicken sandwich out to her. It left her a lot of alone time in the shadows behind their run-down motel, luckily in the back lot, just across a wild untended field, was the Bolton’s house. It was the rear grounds she had eyes on, window lights piercing the chill air from the stark gray two story McMansion Roose Bolton had built as his secluded fortress in the wide plains of Nebraska. 

She remembered Roose, cold dark eyes, pale unhealthy skin, whispery thin voice. He’d been a creepy man, but he had never been a threat to Brienne that the hard men he’d kept around him had been. 

Although, it was not Roose Brienne worried about now. She remembered how her stomach had turned at the obsessive look the sleazy Petyr Baelish had given the young and gorgeous Sansa, a radiant beauty compared to her mother’s homely prettiness, a leering look, one that spoke of lust, possession and manipulation. All things a man Petyr Baelish’s age should never be thinking about a girl of sixteen. Sansa had denied Brienne’s help then, and it had stung, even if she knew the girl was scared and being manipulated. 

Brienne stamped her feet to get more feeling into them. She again looked through her binoculars at the Bolton fortress. She could not help but look at the easternmost second floor window, a small square thing, lit from behind white curtains. She had it on good knowledge from one of the Bolton’s maids that was Sansa’s room, where the girl was locked most days. Brienne tried not to linger too much on what horrors Sansa might be undergoing at Ramsey Bolton’s actions. 

If his father was cold and quirky, Ramsey – illegitimate son of Roose, mostly raised by a drug addicted and negligent mother, and prodigy of a sociopath and likely psychotic killer – stepped over with cold detached zeal all the lines Roose had always carefully avoided. In great need of allies, Roose had let Ramsey closer into his inner circle, but the choice might be the elder Bolton’s undoing. What info Brienne could gather from inside the fortress did not tell clearly who was now in charge. 

And so Brienne waited in the cold, her and Podrick taking turns to watch the house 24/7, to be there for Sansa whenever she had had enough, for whenever she summoned enough courage to want Brienne to rescue her. Not that Brienne had worked out exactly how she was to do that without all of them being killed, but she certainly had ample time to think on it. 

#

The Bolton house being raided by Stannis Baratheon’s forces should not have surprised Brienne. She took a step closer to the house, the weedy field vast between her. Automatic gunfire rang out punctuated by cries and screams. In the growing dawn light Brienne could barely tell the flaming red of Stannis’ forces against the black of the Bolton’s. An explosion went off and then another, Stannis’ forces flew through the air, the brick of the house was blackened. 

Another step into the field, Podrick beside her watched what she did. Brienne lifted her head as if that could aid her vision. She watched the corner window of Sansa’s room. This chaos would be just the opportunity she needed to get the girl out. She had promised Catelyn Stark she would find and protect her girls. 

“Do we wait until after?” Podrick asked. “Maybe Stannis will breech the walls.”

Another explosion sounded sending up a great plume of smoke. Screams sounded, coming closer, and as the smoke cleared Stannis’ forces ran away from the house. 

“Hold! Hold!” a tiny voice sounded. Brienne knew that voice even over a bullhorn. 

Her heart dropped and suddenly she was elsewhere. A well decorated office, overbearing mahogany desk, stag horns upon a picture on the wall, the corners of the desk, the letterhead upon its vast surface. Senator Renly, her lovely Renly, posed in front of a mirror in a dark fashionably cut suit. From a chair Catelyn Stark asked for Renly to align himself with the Young Wolf Robb Stark. Brienne stood at the door, one hand on the holster of her gun. The door did not open, the window was sealed, yet suddenly there stood a shadowy figure, with a fizzy out of focus appearance, something out of an old sci-fi movie. It reached out a knife as not fully there as itself. Her gun was cold in her palm as she dashed toward Renly. A chair clattered as Catelyn stood. Renly fell as she caught him, gun dropped at her boots, blood thick and red blossomed across the fashionable suit and her hands. The figure looked at her, shimmering close enough she could have touched it. A face flashed into focus, clearly that of Stannis Baratheon’s. 

Shouts drawing closer pulled Brienne back to the present. “What do we do, ma’am?” Pod asked, his gun already drawn, eyes wide. 

She should have said, ‘To the house, now is our time to rescue Sansa,’ but her blood burned angry through her veins, the weight of Renly in her arms still echoing in her mind. Instead of strolling forward to the house, she turned and headed toward the tinny voice of Stannis Baratheon. ‘I will avenge you, my sweet Renly,’ she thought. 

Stannis’ attack of the Bolton house had become the slaughter of his troops by the Bolton’s. All around men screamed, cried out in pain, automatic gunfire ripped. Brienne trudged through and past all of the chaos, Podrick trailing behind her, jumpy, gun drawn. Sansa’s light flickered on in the house, a blue flag with a crescent moon and stars attached to the glass, a signal for Brienne who was too obsessed with Stannis and vengeance. 

She found Stannis down the street, hunkering behind one of the Baratheon gigantic SUVs. He glanced up at her as Brienne approached, a hand holding his gut, blood seeping through his dark Kevlar armor, soot upon the red flames on his chest, his knuckles white on a pistol. 

“You,” he said. Blood coated his clenched teeth, his dark eyes as judging as they had once been of his little brother. 

“Yes,” Brienne replied, her own pistol cold in her palm, as it had been the day Renly had been killed. “I promised to avenge him,” her words steady despite the anger pumping through her. 

“Yes.” He nodded. 

In the background those of his forces that could make it to their SUVs fleed, tires screeching as gunfire followed them. Most were unable to do so, and the field she had spent months watching had become a killing ground. 

Brienne raised her gun, flipped off the safety and held her finger against the trigger. “Any last words?” she asked. Much as she hated this man, hated that he had killed Renly, his own brother, hated his overzealous faith and righteousness, he deserved respect. Perhaps in reality he deserved a trial, a lifetime prisonterm, but the world was too broken for such justice, so it would come from her gun as the last of his forces were slaughtered. 

Stannis gave an odd chuckle, a half smirk on this thin lips as blood dribbled down them. His hand opened to release his own gun. He glared up at her with bloodshot eyes, the same blue as Renly’s. “Get on with it,” Stannis said, sure, steady, ready for whatever came beyond. 

Brienne tightened her lips, gathered the anger inside her and pulled the trigger. One sure shot to his forehead, the sound echoing loudly. It knocked his head against the dark metal of the SUV, his eyes as wide and certain in death as they had been in life. She shivered with anger, holstering her gun before it shook from her hand. Somewhere in the distance Pod was asking questions and the world was chaos. Her heart pounded in her ears as she stepped away from Stannis, stepped away from the anger that sill roared through her over Renly’s murder. She had avenged him, and yet nothing inside of her had changed, only then out of the corner of her eyes did she catch sight of the crescent and stars flag flapping in Sansa’s open window.

**Author's Note:**

> Not sure if this has matched pride and humility as good as possible, but this scene was the one that came to mind.


End file.
